Titles in Search of a Script: from the Stanley Kubrick Archives

Titles in Search of a Script: from the Stanley Kubrick Archives

During their 34-year relationship, Stanley Kubrick and his personal assistant Tony Frewin developed a collection of potential movie titles under the headline: “Titles in search of a script.” Lists of Note selected several of their wittiest ideas, with commentary from Frewin following each idea.

Some of their most droll titles include:

COFFIN NOT INCLUDED
(A 1940s noir thriller. When I was researching props for the morgue scene in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ I had a catalogue from a company that supplied funeral parlour equipment. One of the illustrations showed a bier with a coffin on it. The caption read: “The Excelsior Bier (coffin not included).”)

DR STRANGLE-GLOVE
(Stanley’s title misunderstood by a switchboard operator at Shepperton Studios while he was making the film.)

NIGHTCLUBS, MORGUES, HOSPITALS
(A comedy with Steve Martin.)

ONE BAG, ONE NOTEBOOK
(Art house angst, Oskar Werner again.)

SOME LIKE IT COLD
JACK THE SNIFFER
(An intriguing double-bill for forensic science buffs.)

In “The Stanley Kubrick Archives,” Frewin writes that the pair toyed with opening an agency that operated only in selling title ideas, noting: “There had to be a market for them as the studios were doing such a poor job themselves.”